47. Fairness Doctrine was important but even moreso were regulations on ownership

Allowing plutocrats to consolidate the media industry was downright idiotic. Five megacorps own most of the media today, a situation that is causing our nation great harm.

I'm old enough to remember when news outlets had to justify their programming on the "people's airwaves" vis-a-vis a written report on the worthiness of various programs and how they served the public good. Amazing, huh? That was back in the day when Americans considered it their civic duty to stay up-to-date on current affairs and faithfully tuned in to the nightly news and/or subscribed to the daily newspaper toward that end. Just a coincidence that society was far more liberal-minded then? I don't think so.

3. Yes!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! They love to hate

4. yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.........

I've watched them poison minds (granted, minds already predisposed to be bigoted and hateful) to the point that you can't have a rational conversation, and I've removed people from my life because of their hatefulness.

Limbaugh was first, but the 24/7 Fox propaganda bumped it all up quite a few notches, to Batshit Crazy.

7. and yet...

We allow it because it comes under "free speech". Everyone knows they lie.. everyone knows they pull stories from gods knows where, and yet some people are stupid enough to be sucked into it and believe it...live it..breath it.

When the Fairness act was removed, so were the barriers.. and if anyone has money, they can put forth the most offensive, racist, bigoted, sexist, homophobic news programs ever, and no one... no one can say a thing against it, because its their opinion, their right to free speech.

I think America was better before Fox News.. and yet, we have taken a step forward, that can never be walked back, ever.

11. I voted yes, Fox news is responsible for the dumbing down of a lot of America

12. ITS A POLL that is obvious only for the reason

THAT WHILE EVERYONE (who is a liberal, Democrat) Hates Fox News... we are all willing to allow it to exist.. I don't believe in evil.. but any organization who has the power to lie to the masses, and get them to fight back, or revolt for something that may actually be very good for them, is silly. Its like a kid having a temper tantrum and saying "no" to everything, only because it can say "no".

The Republicans and Conservatives have turned this country inside out with some of their backward ideas, and yet we allowed it to happen. How can any country make any progress when you have millions holding on to the Anchor SAYING.. no we won't move forward, and in fact try to drag it backwards to an earlier time?

14. Yes, but we were still subjected to USA Today.

17. If, by "life", you mean ...

If, by "life", you mean everything in the universe and all of its sub-texts and every damn thing you can think of, then "oh yes", it was better. Much better before hate became the norm for so many people.

20. We have

life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness in this country. Yet the Right wingers think we still don't have any of this, and intend to change it to their definition. That even includes things like child labor laws stripped, slavery brought back? The right to discriminate? Because they don't have it their way..they are filled with so much hate...

and damn it, Even having HATE, is their right too... they demand to have the right to hate. The right to go to war, and the right to kill at their discretion. Present laws should not apply to them... they would just sooner change this country to their hateful model.

24. "Fox first tried its hand at a news show in 1988"

according to wiki.. I was around then.. in fact, 14 years old then. I remember my parents watching ABC, NBC, CBS and NPR. My Father and Mother both watched the News Networks then... I don't think my parents paid for Cable TV then..but I don't recall us having it back then. Things have sure changed a lot since then.

22. There were plenty of dark times before Fox News

African American living in the South in the early 1960s (or even later) -- it wasn't Fox News that made your life bad. A woman with no legal right to abortion prior to 1973? Again, it wasn't Fox News that you had to worry about. A college age kid faced with the draft or leaving the country during the Vietnam War? Fox News wasn't your problem.

Fox News showed up on the scene in 1996. It didn't have anything to do with Nixon's reelection in 1972, or the rout of Jimmy Carter and Walter Mondale by Ronald Reagan in 1980 and 1984, or Bush I's victory over Michael Dukakis or the takeover of the House by the Republicans in 1994, or the confirmation of Scalia in 1986 or Thomas in 1991.

28. I think the robber baron media barons controlled the papers much like FOX news

controls the media spin today. I think the small post robber baron era before the Reagan era leaves a lot of people believing the world was always better before FOX news. The media has always had internal bias and often it was again the working person. 24/7 cable news might be as bad now as it ever was, but it hasn't been around that long.

26. It's not just Fox.

It's Rush, the Rush wannabees, the woman on local radio talk that wants to be Laura Ingraham or Michelle Malkin, . . . and the list goes on. They have no show without controversy, and with controversy comes anger. They have built a sphere of hate. At some point they will have to evaluate their lives and determine just what good they have contributed with their presence in this world. They will come up with with negativity and bluster, nothing in the positive column.

45. The WWE, Howard Stern, etc...

Same mentality....as the same audience "grew up" they brought the same mentality to politics...it's still low brow, anti-intellectual competitive entertainment for them. They want to see people fighting. NPR is boring to them.

I always say: Some people listen to NPR to hear people discuss politics. Others listen to Right Wing Radio to hear people fight about it.

35. Network News was different in the old days...

People would speak of Walter Cronkite.. Chet Huntley and David Brinkley... broadcasters back then who gave you the idea of News that had integrity, News you could trust. Some where it all went off the cliff... Some where it went from what was fact... to what could be spun...

40. And, to the point of Ted Turner, when it all started changing...

He DID have this different type of thing introduced in the morning... comedy news... It was rather short-lived... perhaps someone developing the Fox network got the idea that news should be a joke... punch line's on us!

31. Wow, in other words

32. News has always been somewhat entertainment, but not like it is now that we have Fox

It used to be maybe 60-70 percent news, 30-40 percent entertainment, but now it's like 95 percent entertainment, and 5 percent news at Fox. And the popularity of Fox has influenced all news programs, so there's some of that to all of them.

36. I assume it must have been...I've never watched fox news.

37. Not having a TV I haven't watched it either...

Any of it that I see comes from what is posted here on DU.

I do remember seeing just some outrageous pure crap coming from them, over the years. We could have a separate posting alone about all of the crap Fox News has done, from Putting a "D" for Democrat next to a Republican politician who has messed up to ..hosting Donald Trump to talk about the President's birth certificate.

43. The more voice and opinions the better?

News is not supposed to be reported with some opinion. News was: What, When, Where, How, and maybe Why. You didn't have a newscaster sitting their spouting his opinions about the news. It was supposed to present facts. People could read the stories and make up their own minds.. but that was not a News Reporters job to thrown in his or her own opinion. Speculation sometimes came in, but there was no spin.. from a Liberal or a Conservative view point.

46. I take it you want all news stories approved by the Democratic Party first?

You either have freedom of speech or you don't. You claim that it was fair then but lots of folks claim that the media was biased towards liberals. Whether it was or wasn't isn't the point. Those folks felt that it was and FOX spoke to them.

I would much rather live in a country with many voices that disagree than in aq country with only one voice, approved by the party in power.

"Allowing plutocrats to consolidate the media industry was downright idiotic. Five megacorps own most of the media today, a situation that is causing our nation great harm.

I'm old enough to remember when news outlets had to justify their programming on the "people's airwaves" vis-a-vis a written report on the worthiness of various programs and how they served the public good. Amazing, huh? That was back in the day when Americans considered it their civic duty to stay up-to-date on current affairs and faithfully tuned in to the nightly news and/or subscribed to the daily newspaper toward that end. Just a coincidence that society was far more liberal-minded then? I don't think so. "

News was NOT ABOUT opinion. It was about what was fact. Yes you have the freedom of speech to respond to the news in your own way as a consumer, but the NEWS put out by a responsible newscaster was hard core, verified facts. There was no room for spin...

68. I remember biases stories passed off as news during those days.

In 1982 the mobile oil rig Ocean Ranger sank with all 84 hands. A TV documentary was produced by, IIRC 60 Minutes, about what happened. At the time of the documentary I worked as a Ballast Control Room Operator for ODECO, the company that owned the rig. I knew what things were really like on an off-shore rig, and what had really happened on the Ranger. The documentary was way off base.

The major media has always been biased against individual gun ownership. Their stories on gun were biased then, and are biased now.

The only way to counter one side's opinion is to allow other side to speak their opinion. I solidly reject any concept of censorship.

61. more voices and opinions have dropped away with media consolidation

I agree, we need more voices and opinions. Which is why media consolidation brought about by the deregulation (one of the blunders of the Clinton era along with financial deregulation) and Murdoch's attempts to buy up all the media he possibly can need to be reversed. The Corporation for Public Broadcasting which founded PBS/NPR was created in the late 1960s specifically to increase representation and diversity in the media so now the Right Wing wants to do away with PBS because its doesn't always directly fall into line with their agenda. Thank God for the internet cause TV has gone to hell.

48. This country was better off before Reagan eliminated the Fairness Doctrine, period.

Once he did that, it opened up a can of worms, which ultimately paved the way for the likes of Fox News and RW radio talkers to mislead half the country into supporting a regressive fiscal agenda. From what I understand, aren't there other countries that have laws making it illegal to lie on the news? If so, America is long overdue for this.

57. History shows there has always been

"Yellow"Journalism. Rag papers that had biased reporting... but with the deletion of the Fairness Doctrine came the creation of these giant mega networks bent on a certain political slant. Corporation backed networks like Fox, Salem Broadcasting's Christian talk, and Clear Channel Communications had thousands of radio stations dotted across the country sending out the same political slant to people in areas where they might have only one or two radio stations in the area. Only one side was being heard and it was almost as if there was no other side to any conversation.

56. I try not to criticize other poster...ever. But, I can not help it. This is the

60. it was obvious for a reason

when we lost the fairness doctrine, look what has happened to us and continues to happen to our country every day. No one has to be responsible for whats in the News anymore, and even the supreme court said, that Fox News does not have to tell the truth. That was the day integrity in News was lost...and so what do we get?

62. Thanks and sorry. I agree, and it really has affected the wingnuts this time around.

My inlaws only watch Fox and listen to Rush. So, what they heard was complete propaganda and the truth was censored. They just KNEW Romney would win. Thinking back, during the election period, I always thought it was strange when I saw them, because they always thought he was ahead, even when Obama had bigger leads in most all polls.

Now, few people may feel "sorry" for them - they can turn the channel, but they don't. But, in a way, I think, it is unfair to these lowbrow people. Perhaps, some of their more less partisan, more open minded viewers (the cream of their crop) may realize that they had been handed a pile of crap.

I do think it's an interesting discussion topic though....WHY did they do this? Was it more than just keeping them pumped up so they vote? I think it was. I think it was to create and to continue to promote Obama's illegitimacy as President. "He stole it." "He bought it" "Hate the minorities" "Hate government assistance" "Do not help fellow human beings get care from a hospital and doctor, screw them"

Even if we did restore the Fairness Doctrine - we still would have the problem that has evolved with our hyper-technological world. There is no longer an accepted source of truth in the world.

58. YES

59. Belligerence is now common place

It used to be the younger generation that was considered rude but now it is the middle and older people who feel compelled to bellow their contempt for others in any public place they happen to be in.
Lots more anger.

64. Sad

It's really sad, why? Because the FOX viewers are Americans too, I want them to come back to the table for good debate, it makes us stronger, but as long as FOX News is peddling total misinformation as the news Americans cannot even have an honest debate between Conservatism and Liberalism. You can't argue with someone who has an entirely different set of facts about the World as their basis for debate.